


The Moon is Beautiful, Isn't It? (月が綺麗ですね。)

by dont_look_at_me_please



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cliche, Corpo V (Cyberpunk 2077), F/M, Fluff, Many liberties taken, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dont_look_at_me_please/pseuds/dont_look_at_me_please
Summary: Because love doesn't require direct words to be understood.
Relationships: Goro Takemura & Female V, Goro Takemura & V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Goro Takemura/V
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	The Moon is Beautiful, Isn't It? (月が綺麗ですね。)

Perhaps.

In another time, in another place, perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps they could have made it. 

No construct. No Arasaka. No time limit.

They could have met under better circumstances, given the time needed for something like love to blossom. They could have travelled the world together. They could have grown old together with children and grandchildren in their home, far from the city. They could have died together, side by side, whoever's breath left first would closely be followed by the second.

But often does life love to disappoint. To destroy. To kill.

So they spend the time they are allotted, the circumstances they were given, and live.

—

Despite her many objections, V is a corpo through and through. And as a result, has learned a few things that have stuck around longer than she realizes.

He can tell by the way she keeps herself in check, preferring her hair slicked back in a functional ponytail, and often caught looking at her reflection to fix flyaways. How she painstakingly keeps and maintains a fine collection of suits and dresses despite her grizzly, and frankly beggarly, status as a mercenary for hire. He sees it in the way she talks, how she thinks, how she fights, attempting to distance herself from the action as far as possible, spilling as much blood without getting it on her hands.

(you learn to maintain a stately appearance at all times, no exception.)

But right now, blood is all over V's hands, running down her arms. She huffs a stray hair out of her line of vision, underused muscles aching as she heaves a heavily bleeding Takemura to her apartment's bathroom. The cover of night and the absence of lights is their only refuge. She sets him down against the shower, muttering to herself about the location of her first aid box before returning with it in hand.

Takemura does nothing, says nothing as she kneels before his sitting position. Only watches her with rapt attention, as if he never expected to be alive long enough to see her again.

He doesn't bother asking why she came back. He knows if the positions were reversed, he would have done the same.

"Did you enjoy it?" he asks as he leans against the tile wall of her shower, hissing when she pulls his blood-soaked shirt from his torso.

Her eyes look up in quick apology, a hand running through her loose hair in distress before tying it into a ponytail neatly at the base of her skull. "Hm?" is her only answer, busying herself with the first aid box and laying out the necessary provisions.

"Your past life."

He half expects her to quip that she doesn't believe in bullshit like reincarnation. But he knows her better, understands that she knows him better.

She scoffs, half attempting a snort (fails miserably, wasn't something one should do in any company). "Between the backstabbing, hangovers, and constant ulcer inducing fear, I'd say it was quite the blessed life," she says, dousing the nasty looking wound on his torso with water. "It was the only life I knew."

He nods. "Your parents were as well?"

V hums in agreement, reaching for a towel with a small amount of soap to clean around the wound. "My mom was climbing the ranks and my dad wasn't too far behind her. They taught me everything I know. When they passed I—" she pauses, as if waiting for tears that didn’t show.

(you learn that tears mean emotion. emotions mean weakness. weakness is failure.)

"—I had nothing left but this life they’ve given me. No one left to trust. It's difficult to find friends in our world, huh." She fetches an antibiotic cream next, a relative luxury in her current world and gingerly applies it, following it with a series bandages wrapped around his torso.

V smiles at her handiwork, standing up from her kneeled position to give her hand to Takemura who is still on the floor. "Good to know that we are, right Takemura?"

He looks at her (finely manicured, soft, uncalloused) hand and takes it into his own. "We are?" he grunts with exertion, attempting to assist her in standing him up.

V rolls her eyes, heaving him with greater difficulty than she'd like to admit to his feet. She wraps an arm around his waist and walks him to her bed, laying him down as gently as possible. "Friends," she answers simply, placing herself on her couch. She reaches for her pistol on the coffee table before turning to face the direction of her door. "You take the bed. I’ll take first watch. Consider it repayment for saving my life."

(you learn to always repay a debt, no matter how small, no matter how ancient.)

"And an apology," she rings sternly as if to no one, though he knows exactly who she's talking to. "From a certain someone who wanted to leave you for dead." She glares at a particular spot on the wall before rolling her eyes.

Takemura lies on the mattress, faintly noting the scent of her perfume. "Yes, friends," he responds lamely, allowing himself to be enveloped in darkness.

—

The first thing he feels is the warmth of the sun peeking through the blinds. Second is the dull pain aching in his torso. Third is the scent of coffee permeating his nostrils.

Takemura blinks the sunshine in, slowing sitting up and groaning as he does. V grins at him from her place in the kitchen, fiddling with a coffee machine. "Good morning, Takemura," she trills, sounding almost excited to see he stayed as long as he did, albeit unconscious. "No exciting news to report, unfortunately."

"Ah, good," he grunts, sitting up with great effort. "V, you understand that we must part ways, yes?"

He half expects her to protest. Anyone else in her situation would likely have said, _What_ _are you talking about? Don't tell me I went through all that trouble to have you running so soon._

"Of course," V answers simply, too compliant for his taste. The other half hoped she would put up more of a fight. She travels the room, balancing two mugs in her hands along with a carton of milk and a tin of sugar. V stops at the bed in front of him, kneeling on the floor with everything in her arms before offering him a mug. "Coffee first?"

He takes it, watches as she busies herself with pouring a generous amount of milk and scooping _one, two, three?_ spoonfuls of sugar in her own. Takemura takes a sip, grateful that the taste was of actual coffee. "You have my gratitude," he says. "But after this, I must leave. We will be safer this way."

V looks sadder than he'd admit to himself, but raises her mug to his all the same. Takemura chuckles, deep in his chest as if not wanting to humor her, raises his own mug, and clinks theirs together.

He stays much longer after coffee.

—

Their first kiss is cliché. So cliché that Johnny makes it a point to gag in her head for a week. 

Honestly, it was a relief for V who dreaded the surprises life seemed to douse upon her with great splendor.

He takes her to a restaurant worth eating at, ignoring her giggles after realizing the purpose of the series of texts sent earlier that week. He waits for her by a car, kisses her hand before opening the door. Compliments her choice of dress, her styled hair. Strangely, he nods at her choice to wear flat shoes for the evening. When the check comes and she's planning to transfer credits, he stops her with a wave of his hand, his own being transferred.

He leads her by his arm and as she walks in tandem with him over a series of staircases, she’s also glad to have brought flat shoes for this occasion. He leads her to the balcony of a building, she realizes sardonically, was the building they had spent at during their reconnaissance. She feels the breeze of the night embrace her and sighs. "This is nice and all, Takemura." She leans against the rail of the building, staring at the empty space the cat they witnessed together once sat. "But why did you bring me here?"

Takemura goes to stand next to her and she realizes — too close — or not close enough? He looks up. "Look. Stars."

She looks up and— Oh.

He was right. Stars. Thousands of them. The same ones that were once dimmed from her home in Charter Hill amidst Night City’s rampant light pollution were now in full display from the roost of an unfinished skyscraper building.

"You remembered?" She finds her cheeks grow hot when he nods. "I don’t know what to say."

"Say nothing if you must."

At this point she can feel Johnny’s disgust grow to full blown revulsion at the implication of it all which she attempts to silence with the promise of a cigarette later that night.

Johnny begrudgingly agrees at two and is quiet but smoldering in the recesses of her brain.

"Goro, this is amazing, I—" She pauses, feeling her cheeks grow hotter when she calls him by his first name. Years of being under Arasaka thumb taught her many things about Japanese etiquette and she just— "S-Sorry. Don’t know what came over me. I—"

She pauses again when she feels a hand ghost her cheek and notices very suddenly the sensation of the rail against her lower back as Takemura is in front and obscuring most of her vision of the stars.

And she realizes he’s _too_ close.

"V," he says. Looks away, takes a small breath. "Valerie."

She feels her own breath taken away, her face tilting towards Takemura's hand.

" _The moon is beautiful, isn't it?_ " he asks, quietly in his native tongue. He tucks a stray hair behind her ear. V doesn’t say anything, her mouth agape at his words, translator unnecessary. "Do you understand?"

Her answer comes too hurried. “Yes.”

The silence is palpable between the two, neither moving from their positions, before she spoke again.

"Then, do you understand this?"

Takemura barely has time to compute before she stands on her toes and kisses him. Once. Twice. Three times before realizing that once was probably too many for one night.

She has an apology at the ready, not realizing his arms had already wrapped around her waist, bringing their lips together once again.

Four.

Five.

Six.

She stops counting.

—

When she wakes in the morning, Johnny is glowering over her from her place in her bed.

"You forgot," he growls, gritting his teeth. "And get him the fuck of our apartment for fuck's safe. We're really doing this. Really gonna fuck a corpo Arasaka-sucking rat. Just—"

"Fine, a whole pack. The whole week. Whenever. Wherever you want," V mutters. she rubs her temples, a headache coming on. "What happened?”

Johnny doesn’t answer her question, only scoffs at her compromise. "Fine. And in the future, make sure to take the blockers whenever he’s around. Don’t wanna be fucking near this train wreck no matter how many smokes you promise me." He disappears in a flash and she is blissfully alone once again.

V blinks slowly at the situation she found herself with her unwitting cerebral roommate. She places her hand on her bed. But instead of sheets, her palm meets skin, warm and pliant underneath her fingers.

She looks down and her vision is met with a bare Takemura watching her with a bemused expression, the blanket slung low at his hips. V looks down and sees that she matches him in clothing (read: meaning none).

"Good morning," he greets simply, the grogginess of his voice an indication of him just waking up.

"Good morning." She looks practically sheepish, fisting the sheets against her chest. "Was last night okay?"

Takemura chuckles, the deep sound reverberating in his throat. "Yes, very much." He reaches for her bicep, pulling her down so that their bodies are flushed against one another.

"Y-You’re naked!" she shrieks, as if completely forgetting her status as a cold blooded mercenary and a grown ass woman. Never mind her own state of undress.

Takemura rolls his eyes. "You too. We match," is all he says before reminding her of what happened last night.

—

In the afterglow of it all they talk of things that people don’t normally talk about after spending the night together.

They talk of his dream to move back to Japan. To walk the streets of Tokyo with her in tow and show her what real food is like. She laughs into his shoulder at his insistence that most of the sustenance in Night City wouldn’t even be qualified as cat food. Cats of which, he claims, are abundant.

They talk about a legacy she feels she will never fulfill. She says between the wringing of her wrists that her goal of being of a legend was one set up by her dead parents and that constant pursuit of it caused her own friend’s death. She claims all she wants to do now is survive and live a good life. He retorts that many injustices have been done in the name of survival which is met with a sigh of agreement.

They talk about a future that will likely never come.

They talk about children.

_I don’t know._

_Me neither._

_Did you ever want one?_

_Perhaps. Give them the life I never had._

_Me too._

_But it doesn’t matter._

_It does._

_No. As long as I have you._

_You don’t know how long you have me for._

_Does not matter. I would rather have died knowing you for mere seconds than living a full life and never knowing you at all._

—

"When did it start with you?" V asks in a hushed tone. He looks down at her, perched on his chest under her (their) sheets.

Takemura runs his fingers against her spine, methodically, purposefully, counting each vertebra. "When you came back for me," he answers. "Called me your friend."

She hums in satisfaction. 

"You could have left me to die," he says suddenly as he brushes a stray hair from her face. 

Her head pops up. “No I couldn’t,” she states it as if it were a fact.

They both know it is.

Takemura takes it as the moment you roll them over, his form towering over her. "And you?"

V thinks for a moment and grins. "The selfie you sent me," she chortles under her hand.

The whirs in his neck start churning faster as he feels himself grown hot in embarrassment. "That-that was—"

"Quite cute if I do say so myself," V interrupts in a beam. She manages to reach for her phone under the pillow and wags it in front of his face. "Makes the best screensaver too." 

She shrieks when he wraps his arms around her in a faux wrestle for her phone.

Then, something happens. His lips reach that spot behind her ear that makes her breath catch in her throat. Her hands find themselves in his loose hair, combing the strands through her fingers. Their eyes meet and they understand.

—

The first thing she feels is the warmth of the sun peeking through the blinds. Second are the sheets that encase her body, keeping her even warmer. Third is the arm slung around her, a symphony of sinewy muscles and electrical cords.

She sighs into the pressure on her back, trying her best to ignore the rampant stubble that tickles her neck. She shakes with subtle laughter, trying best not to wake her sleeping companion.

Ultimately, it fails. She feels his chest rise and fall, suddenly accompanied by a yawn.

He squeezes her into him, the stubble of his chin grazing her bare shoulder, kisses it. 

"Good morning, _love_."

She smiles. 

"Good morning."

It was indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Just wanted an excuse to write really cliche romance with my recent favorite Gen Z Boomer. Thank you for reading!


End file.
